


limits and imaginary lines

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Agender Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Pining, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22486012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: In which Aziraphale ponders death and love and gender and unicorns throughout the centuries.With thanks, as usual, to Walt Whitman.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	limits and imaginary lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stardust_podfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_podfics/gifts).



_Camerado, I give you my hand!  
I give you my love more precious than money,  
I give you myself before preaching or law;  
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?  
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?_  
Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”

_Mesopotamia, 3005_

It had been about a year since the flood began. Everything was still rather wet. 

And so very… empty.

Aziraphale trudged along the Earth, taking some care still to pluck their white robes up above the ground as best they could. It did not matter. Mud caked their ankles, settled deeply in between their toes. 

Aziraphale paused and took a deep breath. _Ineffable,_ whispered the ever-present Voice in their head. But Aziraphale noted, with a touch of shame, that the voice was softer than it normally was. Perhaps harder to hear over the whistle of the wind against the complete desolation of the land. Yes, that must have been it.

Must have been. 

Azirphale’s fingers twitched. They folded them together behind their back. 

_Good,_ said the Voice. _Everything according to plan, Aziraphale. Exactly how the Almighty planned it._

But Aziraphale thought as privately as they could of the unicorn that had gotten away. When the rains had started to fall, when it became clearer and clearer that the rains were not going to _stop_ falling… Aziraphale had noticed the way that the humans had reached out to one another. The way they had taken hands, threaded fingers, crushed chests and hearts together… They did not go into their ends alone. 

But who had reached out for that unicorn? 

Aziraphale frowned. Because perhaps worse… who had reached out for the unicorn on the Ark when it had realized what was to become of its only fellow? Who had stroked that unicorn’s mane when it had put together that the world was now to be theirs to travel alone? 

Aziraphale looked up. The sky was a treacherously pale blue (too soft, Aziraphale thought quietly, to really match the enormity of what had happened). And, just there, streaking across the clouds… 

Well, it really was quite beautiful, wasn’t it? 

“Was it worth it?”

Aziraphale jumped at the sudden sound to their left.

“Just me, angel.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed, turning around to meet a familiar set of yellow eyes. “ _You._ What are you doing here?”

Crawly cocked their head to one side, squinting ahead at the rainbow. “Had to come see for myself, didn’t I?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said again, feeling rather thick. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you did.”

They stood in silence for a moment, regarding the sky.

“It is beautiful,” Aziraphale offered, again feeling quite stupid. They often felt this way around Crawly. This need to defend, to explain, but somehow those peculiar eyes always left them feeling rather exposed for… well, for _something._

_They’re a demon,_ sneered that Voice. _They’re supposed to confuse you, to unsettle you. Be strong, Aziraphale. Be constant._

“Yes,” Aziraphale heard themself saying out loud now, more firmly. “The rainbow. I think it might be the Almighty’s most wondrous creation yet.”

“You didn’t answet my question,” Crawly drawled, turning their gaze now fully on Aziraphale. “Was it _worth it?_ ”

As Aziraphale opened their mouth to speak, a phantom sound intruded upon their mind. A whinny, low and soft and terrified. A desperate plea for some kind of comfort from an animal in its final moments of life. The terrified begging of a creature who didn’t understand _why._

 _Who didn’t understand anymore than I do,_ came a new voice in Aziraphale’s head. A new, sad voice. One that sounded more like their own. 

Aziraphale closed their mouth again, swallowed down their reply. 

Crawly turned back to the rainbow, sighing deeply.

“Yeah, Aziraphale,” they said. “It is beautiful.”

The demon’s fingers tensed for a second by their side, and for a moment, Aziraphale imagined that they had been about to rise up and rest upon their shoulder. But then those fingers relaxed, and Crawly was gone, and Aziraphale felt perhaps that things were somehow lonelier than even before. 

_Would you reach out for me?_ That new voice in their head again, perilously soft and full of something like longing. Aziraphale flinched again. 

“No,” they said aloud to no one. “NO. Absolutely not.”

And they turned away. 

_London, 1351_

Oh, dear. 

This one was going to be tough to drink away. 

Aziraphale sat alone in the tavern, fingers gripping the tankard before them a touch too tightly.

 _Relax,_ commanded the Voice. _It's fine. You’re fine._

Aziraphale inhaled too sharply, and coaxed their shoulders down from where they were hunched up by their ears, but they couldn't do anything about their fingers. They needed to clutch something. Aziraphale could do as much about their fingers as they could do about the stench of death that still permeated even the confines of the tavern. 

Nothing.

And then the world to their left shifted.

"Rubbish century, if you ask me."

 _Crowley._

"I didn't," Aziraphale said, primly, hating themself for it. "Ask you, I mean."

But Crowley was hardly finished. And, despite their frustration, Aziraphale also recognized with shame the amount of relief that flooded over them in the demon's presence. Their fingers even relaxed a touch.

Just a touch.

"At least the flood was quick," Crowley went on, thumb tracing the lip of their own mug of ale. "Not so messy as all this, was it? Could do without all the pus myself." 

"But this... well, _all this,_ " Aziraphale knew they sounded desperate, a touch silly even. "Well, this must be all to do with your lot, mustn't it?"

_Please, let it be them._

Crowley set their tankard down on the wooden table. They fixed Aziraphale with that stare, with those sharp, clever serpent's eyes.

Those eyes looked at Aziraphale now with something like pity.

Aziraphale's fingers twitched.

"Does it matter, angel?" Crowley asked at last.

"Well, of course it matters!" Aziraphale sputtered. "It matters a great deal! If your lot's been up to it all, well, that's what evil does, doesn't it?"

"And if it's your lot?"

"Well," Aziraphale shifted their eyes down to their hands, feeling quite small. "Well, then it must mean something."

"And what does it mean, angel?"

 _That evil dresses in white as well as black,_ dared the little voice.

Aziraphale slammed their tankard down on the table, ale sloshing all over, coating their fingers. 

"Well, I wouldn't expect a _demon_ to understand." Aziraphale huffed, hating themself all over again. Their fingers were sticky, and even in the midst of their anger, they longed to stretch forward, to grasp Crowley by the wrist and drag them out into the sick, festering night where they might traverse the world together. They longed for something like a friend. 

They opened their mouth to speak, to apologize, to confess even. Crowley stared at them, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open. 

They were so lovely. And the world was decaying yet again. 

Aziraphale turned away. 

_New York City, 1985_

The ill man’s name was Reggie. Aziraphale sat with him in the hospital, and had no idea what to do. Reggie had been praying, and Aziraphale had answered him. Aziraphale sat beside the bed, and read poetry aloud to this dying man:

_All seems beautiful to me,  
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,  
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,  
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,  
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,  
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,  
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me._

And when Reggie passed away, Aziraphale could not keep the bitterness out of their thoughts. 

All did not seem beautiful to them. 

Aziraphale stepped out on to the street, the ghost of Reggie’s frail fingers still clutching at their own. Reggie was not the first man Aziraphale had sat with in the midst of this horrifying decade. Not the first man that had gasped out the name of… who? A friend, a partner, a lover?

“John,” Reggie had breathed, over and over there towards the end. 

John who was not even allowed into the hospital room. John who was not allowed to reach out for Reggie in his final moments. 

Aziraphale’s fingers twitched. They looked up at the sky. 

And there it was again just as it had been back in Mesopotamia, so many ages ago.

A rainbow. 

And Aziraphale thought about Reggie and John. They thought about the hundreds more like them, kept apart from one another simply _because_ they loved one another. 

“This is only the beginning, isn’t it?” Aziraphale whispered to no one. To everyone.

To Someone.

_“‘Fraid so, angel.”_

Aziraphale closed their eyes tightly, and saw Crowley so clearly in their mind’s eye. Pictured perfectly the movement of his eyebrows as he crossed his long arms across his chest, and leaned against the alley wall. Aziraphale longed for his voice, longed for his questions.

 _Ask me again if this is worth it._ Aziraphale’s brave voice. _Tell me this time that it’s rubbish. Please, my dear. Give me another chance._

Aziraphale tilted their head to the left, waiting for the demon to materialize. 

Waited.

Nothing.

Aziraphale’s fingers twitched. 

Why wasn’t Crowley here?

Why did Aziraphale want Crowley here so badly?

Aziraphale looked down at their hands, folded as they so often were against their belly. They _itched._ The world was so dark and immeasurable sadness was on its way once again, and Aziraphale’s fingers itched for the comforts of something… Not of a book, of a pastry, of a magic trick…

Aziraphale closed their eyes tightly to block out the thought. Because they _couldn’t._ It just wasn’t right. Some creatures simply weren’t meant to be together.

 _Like Reggie and John weren’t meant to be together?_ wondered the brave, defiant little voice in their head. 

Aziraphale gasped aloud at the thought, bringing a hand up to where their heart would have been. 

“No,” they said to no one. To everyone.

To Someone. 

As they finally began to walk away from the hospital _(Where? Everywhere was more death, more pain, more loneliness)_ , Aziraphale caught a glimpse of their own reflection in a shop window. They regarded the short, messy sandy hair, the wobbly, blue eyes, the always craving hands. They had never worried much about their corporation. They supposed they looked mostly "male," as far as some humans were concerned. They were accustomed to being referred to as a "he" throughout the centuries, certainly, but they were not actually a man, and it had never really mattered much to them. 

Aziraphale thought some more about Reggie and John. And then, of course, they thought some more about Crowley. _Anthony J. Crowley,_ Aziraphale reminded themself, a small smile sneaking across their face in spite of everything. Aziraphale looked again at the rainbow, and thought about what it meant, about all the things that it had come to mean over the years. Thought about what Crowley meant to...

 _Him,_ Aziraphale decided, quietly. And it felt completely insignificant and totally momentous all at the same time. There was nothing to sign or declare or prove, just his own voice claiming his body for what he wanted to call it. Mostly because he was still thinking about how Reggie had loved John. And how that, like so many things, made him think about how he, Aziraphale loved...

_Oh._

Aziraphale stopped in his tracks. 

_You great idiot,_ whispered the small, brave voice. 

It was getting louder every day, Aziraphale noticed. 

And, this time, he walked forward. In the direction of the rainbow. 

_London, 2019_

It had been a long day. The longest, perhaps.

Aziraphale and Crowley clambered on to the bus together, exhausted. And finally finally finally… before they were even properly seated…

Aziraphale reached out. 

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his. Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his, and intertwined their fingers, and a sob of relief nearly broke free from his body. 

Crowley, meanwhile, very much _did_ make a noise, but Aziraphale would have been hard pressed later on to accurately categorize what that sound actually was. Something between a squeak and a yelp, maybe? Maybe. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley murmured, staring down at their joined hands. “What’s this, then?”

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” Aziraphale admitted, and goodness, it felt wonderful and fascinating to be sure of _something_ even if it was only that he was sure of absolutely nothing.

Nothing but of this. But of his own heart, finally, and of the truth of his feelings for the creature sitting beside him. This being whom it was not right nor wrong to love, to call a friend, to long for in his absence… It just was. It always had been. 

So, Aziraphale went on, in a voice that was completely and totally his own:

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, Crowley. And so, my dear, if this is my last chance to finally reach out and hold some piece of you… well, I rather think I must, mustn’t I? Because I think perhaps you’ve been reaching out to me this entire time, and I’ve been rather too stupid to recognize it for what it was. To recognize you for what you are to me.”

Crowley swallowed, and squeezed Aziraphale hand. 

“And what’s that, angel?”

Aziraphale smiled. “You know, dear fellow, there’s a lovely poem that’s been on my mind quite fervently lately. Perhaps I might read it to you sometime?”

And Crowley nodded. They were quiet for a long time. 

Aziraphale, finally feeling something like brave, could not get one frightened thought out of his mind. He dipped his head just enough to whisper against Crowley’s ear:

“I hope _I_ was worth it.”

Crowley jerked around at that, and Aziraphale could feel that gaze piercing him, even behind his glasses. Crowley gripped Aziraphale’s fingers so tightly that the angel thought perhaps he would never twitch again.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley growled. “I’m not going to pretend that some of it hasn’t been awfully rotten-- this so-far of eternity, I mean. But I’d do the whole bloody thing all over again, so long as even a moment of it is spent next to you. Got it, angel?”

In response, Aziraphale leaned his forehead against Crowley’s. 

They exited the bus together, and walked hand in hand forward into their grand scheme to preserve this newly found world of theirs. They stayed awake all night, brave and determined and on their own side. And whenever Aziraphale felt overwhelmed or frightened, he reached out once more for Crowley. And Crowley met him everytime. 

And, of course, thank goodness, there was indeed time for that wonderful Sometime of poetry reading. Time for these two to hold hands freely and without shame and perhaps for the rest of their very long lives. 

_Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,_  
Healthy, free, the world before me,  
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. 

They choose each other, my dear and weary traveler. They always will.

They will walk together along the open road, and a rainbow will light their way.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, goodness! Thank you so much for reading! This was a new and exciting challenge for me, so I'm honored that you're here.


End file.
